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Frisk by Jo Bragg

This is Jo Bragg (Ngāti Porou)’s debut collection. It compromises poetry written over ten years, and was begun to process a bad breakup in the author’s twenties. The text is ccompanied by the author’s visual art and includes an introduction by essa may ranapiri. Published by Āporo Press, it’s the newest debut out: it was launched at Lamplight Books in Parnell on the 20^th August.

AUP New Poets 12 edited by Anne Kennedy

You could argue that this volume is three debut collections in one, and you’d be right! Zephyr Zhang, Loretta Riach, and Anuja Mitra present their first chapbooks to the world in AUP New Poets 12, the latest in Auckland University Press’s series. Anne Kennedy edited and introduces the collection, and you can read Melanie Kwang’s review for Kete here.

Watching Television in a Love Motel by Haro Lee

Reviewer Marcus Hobson at NZBooklovers says the poetry in Haro Lee’s debut collection ‘spin[s] us around the world from Aotearoa to South Korea and also to the United States.’ With the collection in four parts, named after television time spans, the author explores her past, present and self through the lens of a cultural phenomenon. You can hear TimeOut owner Jenna Todd review the book on RNZ’s Nine to Noon.   

Portrait by Jackson McCarthy

This dark debut subverts the tradition of lyric poetry, concerning itself with various obsessions: time, desire, vision, beauty and solitude. The author, when asked about the book in an interview at NZBooklovers, said that ‘It’s got all my greatest hits thus far, as well as some new ones to keep you on your toes…[] …these poems are not me, but they are of me. My sense is that the book tracks the development of a voice.’ To check out more about Portrait, have a listen to Melissa Oliver’s review at RNZ.

Here Be Dragons by Shelley Arlidge

Kororareka author Shelly Arlidge’s debut collection was released by micro-press Firestarter in June 2026, with poems ‘that are fires in small grates in cosy houses.’ (Johanna Aitcheson). With an eye on the domestic, the poetry is imbued with possibility and a touch of magic. Earlier versions of some of these poems have been published in Landfall, Poetry NZ Yearbook, Fast Fibres and Russell Review.

Hungus, by Amber Esau

Hungus has a striking cover with a giant green insect holding a machete: this creature inhabits the book, as ‘fluid and full of history as the moana’. Poet Amber Esau has a MA from the International Institure of Modern Letters, and was named as one of the New Voices of Aotearoa 2026. Former Poet Laureate David Eggleton said, in a review for Kete, that ‘these poems are at once shrewdly observant and comically contrarian.’ You can read more of his thoughts here.